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| October 18, 2009 | Unrestricted poaching could see extinction of African elephant in 15 years | | London: The mighty African elephant could face extinction within 15 years due to illegal ivory trade. According to a Sunday Express report, poachers slaughter 104 elephants
every day for their valuable tusks. As a result, conservationists are now demanding
an international crackdown on the ivory industry. The worldwide illegal trade
in wildlife is third only to drugs and arms, and is worth an estimated 12.5 billion
pounds a year. The International Fund for Animal Welfare last night warned that
unless immediate action was taken, elephants would disappear from the wild within
a generation. It is calling on the EU and CITES members (Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species) to stop supporting occasional supervised ivory sales.
Instead, they are urged to back Kenya’s proposal to extend the current “resting
period” on elephant and ivory decisions from nine to 20 years at the next CITES
meeting in March 2010. Robbie Marsland, director of the International Fund for
Animal Welfare, said: “Most people will be shocked to hear that, 20 years after
the ban on the international ivory trade, elephants in Africa are still threatened
by commercial poaching. “The ivory trade must be banned once again, and comprehensively,
if we want to prevent the extinction of elephants.” Illegal ivory is now used
as currency in East African conflicts in much the same way as “blood diamonds”
were in civil wars across West Africa in the Nineties. The demand for ivory in
the Far East, particularly China, has reached record levels. Chad’s Zakouma National
Park had 3,885 elephants in 2005 but by 2009 the figure had plummeted to just
617. At least 11 rangers were killed by poachers there over the same period. | |
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